1. Europe: 1894-1914 An Age of Anxiety and Modernity

2. The New Physics
Old thinking:
Newtonian idea that the world was a giant machine
Time, space, matter were objective realities
Marie and Pierre Curie
Discovered radium gave off rays of radiation that came from within the atom
Max Planck
Said a heated body radiates energy in irregular packets called “quanta.”
By 1900, the old view of atoms as basic building blocks was questioned.

3. RELATIVITY THEORY: Space and time are not absolute but relative to the observer woven into a four-dimensional space-time continuum

4. Friedrich Nietzche Glorified the “irrational.”
Thought Western society was decadent and had no cultural creativity because of its emphasis on rational faculty at the expense of emotions
Put a lot of the blame on Christianity

5. Henri Bergson French philosopher
Rational, scientific thought was useful and practical but couldn’t arrive at truth or ultimate reality
“Reality” could only be grasped intuitively

6. Sigmund Freud Theories added to the uncertainty of the age
Said human behavior was determined by the unconscious, earlier experiences and inner forces
The Interpretation of Dreams came to be the known as psychoanalysis

7. Social Darwinism
Herbert Spencer argued societies were organisms that evolved through a struggle with their environment
Claimed state shouldn’t intervene
Nationalists and racists applied Darwin’s ideas to argue that nations were engaged in a “struggle for existence” and only the fittest survived.
Concept of the Volk – nation, people, race – volkish thought claimed Germans were the only pure successors of the “Aryans,” the true creators of Western Culture

8. Challenges to Christianity
Industrialization and urbanization – close-knit traditional ties of the village and church gave way to new patterns of life that excluded the church
Late 19th century political movements hostile to the church – From Enlightenment on, some counties imposed controls over the church courts, clergies.
Anticlericalism - opposition to the clergy for its real or alleged influence in political and social affairs, for its doctrines, for its privileges or property, or for any other reason
Example: In France in 1905, church and state were completely separated.
Science – Darwin
Ernst Renan – French Catholic scholar, Life of Jesus, questioned the historical accuracy of Jesus not as the son of God but as a good person and teacher

9. Church Responds Outright rejection of new ways of thinking
Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors – said it was “an error to believe that the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and agree with, progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” – condemned nationalism, socialism, religious toleration and freedom of the speech and press
Modernism – attempt by churches to reinterpret Christianity
Bible was a book of useful moral ideas
Encouraged Christians to become involved in social reform
Catholic Church condemned it in 1907

10. Some Compromise …
Leo XIII permitted teaching evolution as a hypothesis
Said much in socialism was Christian in principle, criticized “naked” capitalism but condemned Marxist socialism for its materialistic and antireligious foundations
Other Christian groups made efforts
at compromise:
Salvation Army – founded in London
Established food centers, shelters